highlights from my first time running (and also generally playing) a DND session:
spending ten minutes trying to figure out what modifiers did what and when
fighting over what the difference between perception, insight, and investigate was
there is literally only one named NPC in this quest and they only exist to give the players the quest and one player is convinced they are up to something bad
another player has decided they and the NPC are long-time enemies and they’re goal is to ruin this character’s life
the quest said to spawn 8 giant rats but we’re all n00bs so instead here’s 6
two of our characters almost died within two turns
i literally just had two of the rats leave the battle to make it easier/set up the puzzle in the next room
“well lets just block the hole the rats were coming from and its fine” coooool except this was barely half the quest i had planned out sooooo no?
i included a DM-played ‘N’PC character just so they wouldn’t be as helpless, who turned out to have the best luck at combat dice rolls
she saved a player character’s life and he might be switching which heroic figure he’s dedicating his life to following
taking an hour break in between questing to hang out with the NPC and chat about our lives and also not die
the random dungeon puzzle that was supposed to be the halfway point which we couldnt solve before we realized we needed to go home for the night
“ooh-VAMPIRE rats!’ you would NOT survive that
can we just talk about the sheer anticlimax that is rolling a d4?
trying to draw my dungeon map out in the middle of gameplay because you’re not supposed to know what the next room looks like yet and i did not prepare ahead of time